Thanksgiving 2015

I have not posted here in over a year and a half but this Thanksgiving I am feeling overly blessed so I wanted to share some major things that I am thankful for:
1. my relationship with Jesus Christ. He has taught me this year to cling to Him in the hard times and the good times. He has taught me to trust him with my future.  I am thankful for the truth of His word and the power that it has in my life. Lastly, I am thankful for the cross because without the cross, there would be no gospel and there would be nothing to live for on this Earth.
2. I graduated from Messiah College with a bachelor's degree in Athletic Training and am so thankful that I passed my Board of certification exam not on the first try but the second. It really taught me that things don't come easy and it taught me perseverance to continue to aim toward my final goal.
3. I got a job working with Penn Medicine as an outreach athletic trainer working with Philadelphia school district, the school district, that I graduated from. It has been a blessing to give back to the kids who live in my city and who are playing sports in Philly.

4. I am so unbelievably blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. I like to say that I don't just have one family but many families.  Below are just a few snapshots of the "families": in my life

The beautiful family that God has blessed me with. two sisters,
two parents and two awesome brother in laws

My extended family with me at graduation. 

  CARSON SIMPSON Farm has been the best place to spend the last 5 summers of my life. It is not just a place that I went to work from 9-4 everyday, but it was as place where I gained a second family. The ministry was amazing. Getting to see kids come summer after summer and watching them grow from the age of 5 to 10 was amazing to watch. God has moved so much in the last few summers I was there. But more importantly, the staff easily became my family. People I could cry with, celebrate with and grow with. That happened this summer as I awaited my board results. They celebrated with me and were so excited for me. I am beyond blessed to have this staff and this forever family that I hold so close to my heart. ( I couldn't have asked for better people to spend my summer with.

My amazing lifeguard staff!

 The next family that I joined is the Living Water Community Church family. Let me tell you about this church. When people talk about how important it is to find a great church family, they were so right. Finding Living Water and being apart of the church has been amazing. I have grown so spiritually from the church. I really learned how to study God's word more and learned to have a passion for the Bible.  The church allowed me to live with an awesome couple during my 5th year at college as well as provided me with an amazing young adults small group with people whom I now call my close friends. So blessed to have been such a huge part of that group over the last year and a half.

The crew came to see me graduate and it was such a blessing!

Just hanging out at a friend's wedding! 

These pictures are only a minor snapshot of all that I am thankful for this year but I wanted to post some happy pictures from this year and why I'm thankful! 

Think about what you are all thankful for today and be sure to tell people you love them! 

I love you all

-Christie 

Some thoughts as I think about the next few days.

In 2 days, the Class of 2014 at Messiah College will walk across the stage and receive their college degree.  I will be sitting in the stands, probably crying my eyes out, with a mix of sad tears and happy tears. Many of the people who will be graduating were some of my first friends at Messiah and I hope to stay in touch with them for a long time.  When I found out two years ago, that My college graduation  would be delayed an extra year, I was so angry. I felt like I wasn't worth it and felt like I was getting held back in some sorts. My parents and I both had a stream of emotions for awhile. College had been really hard for me , in fact, it was the biggest challenge of my life. I thought that graduating in 4 years was the thing to do. I mean the majority of people, graduate on time. I was wondering why this happened to me. but than, of course, I learned an important lesson.  God comes into our lives and surprises us to no means. He changes your plans and you have to learn to remain faithful and trust that He knows what He is doing. This was very hard for me to learn. I tried to do everything possible to graduate on time, but the major that I wanted was not allowing me to do that.
Over the last two years, I have really grown more in my faith. I live on a day by day basis, knowing that I have something planned. But at any moment, God can come around and change that plan to teach me a lesson. I also continued to learn about the never ending, crazy love of Jesus. Yes, I might have failed a few classes and had to retake them, I might have not broken any times in my swimming career, but God was crazy about me, and loved me through all my flaws and failures. I think when people understand that is when they can truly be real with God. Because our whole life revolves around Him and everything that I do matters to Him. My pastor once said this in a sermon, " Jesus is so unpredictable and that is why it is so hard to follow Him."  That statement has been proclaimed in my life. He is very unpredictable but I have learned to trust in Him and follow Him.
So, to sum this up, Saturday will be an emotionally filled for me wishing that I was up there graduating with some of my best friends, however, I am also so excited to come back for another year to the place that I call home. God is doing amazing work at Messiah and I am excited to see what I will learn in the next year and to see how,  God will move in the next year.  I am not ready to graduate yet, and looking forward to one more fantastic, and unpredictable year trusting in God and waiting to see how He will change me.
Until next time,
Trusting and Following Christ.

A New Year

Well, 2014 has arrived! The year that I was supposed to be graduating from college but like so many times, God often changes our plans.  As many of my close friends are applying for graduate schools, applying for jobs and are really stressed out about the reality of life that will come to them in 4 short months, I am simply living every day one day at a time and cherishing every moment and opportunity that is given to me. I am treating this like my senior year because it technically is.  Other than that, I was trying to think of things that I want to do this year. I think that New Year's resolutions are lame so I am just thinking of  ways that I want to grow this year.
 1. The first is through my prayer life.  I want to be intentional about praying for people each and every day and growing in my prayer life.  Prayer is the number one way that we communicate with God and so as I am also trying to grow closer to Him this year, my prayer life has got to become better.  So I am trying to make a prayer list and ask my friends what they need prayer for.
2. I am trying to be intentional about relationships in my life. So often, in the hustle and bustle of life, it is so hard to keep in touch with people. I  have been blessed with many great friends in my life so I want to to be deliberate about spending as much time with people as possible.
3. Lastly,  I would like to returrn to my first love. I know I say this every year, but  I am really trying to grow more in love with my faithful, compassionate and loving Savior.
I am excited for the year and the many ways that I will fall short of the glory of God  but than be able to receive His grace and  live every hour of every day glorifying God and enjoying him!
 
I am also trying to blog more as well:) Let's see how that works out....

Beauty!

" I see your face in every sunrise, the colors of the morning are inside your eyes.. I look up to the sky and say you're beautiful".
 The words to one of my favorite songs. It is all about reflecting on the beauty of God.
As spring approaches, I think of the beautiful flowers, beautiful weather and the wonderful blue skies. It really has me reflect on the beauty of God.   Creation is beautiful because God is beautiful!   Too often the evil of this world blocks out the beauty  that God intended for this world to be. He designed it so everything in it is beautiful.  Even the people. We are so quick to gossip about others and let others bring us down, but in reality, every person on this Earth is beautiful because God created them . As human beings we all long for beauty. We see it everywhere in magazines, TV commercials and advertisements on beauty products. True beauty comes from the inside. We need to see beauty in others.  There is beauty all around us in the little things and taking time to reflect on  beauty every day will help you see the world in a more positive manner . Reflect on the beauty of God everyday and have it help you block out the evils in this world.

The beauty that I  have been reflecting on the last few days..

My amazing cousin!

Well, I have not posted on here in a few months and need to get better at it. Today marks 8 years since my heart broke and my amazing, beautiful, full of life cousin died. A piece of me died that day. Worst day of my life.  After 8 years, God has healed my heart and there will always be a piece of her with me but God is showing me that If I lean on Him He can comfrot me and strengthen me.  Alana was an amazing person. She loved her family more than anything. Her

She loved Halloween and pirates!

weekends that she spent with her dad were always things she would look forward to. Her dad ( my uncle) and she were always doing adventurous things outside and were very into nature and outdoorsy. I remember going to her house every year at Christmas and having a sleepover. We would order pizza, and than go in the basement in front of the fire and watch Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean. I believe we watched Lord of the Rings 3 the Christmas before she passed. Katie, Alana and I would all sit in this big maroon chair and watch the movie. They would make fun of me because I always fell asleep during these"action movies". She always came to my grandparent's in the summer and we would play for hours in the pool. My sisters and Alana had a secret girls club that held "meetings" in a shed.  In reality, it  was really just a time for the 4 of us to spend with just each other.  She loved Chocolate, the color purple, Spice Girls, John Mayer, N'sync and Halloween was by far her favorite holiday. My favorite color is now purple in honor of her.  Everyone that met her loved her because she was super sweet, had a heart of gold and was very outgoing. The last time I saw her was Easter of 2005. We still had our Easter basket hunt in Nana and Papa's house and she was in tenth grade loving high school. She was excited about learning how to drive that summer in Canada with her dad on the ten mile dirt road.  She never got to learn how to drive. But she  certainly loved her  life here on Earth and was loved immensely and still is everyday.  I will always miss her and think about all the things she has missed. She would loved my sister's weddings and would probably call me up at college and see how I am doing right now.  She would have been at my graduation party and signing my cast when I broke my leg. 

I am truly a blessed girl to have known my cousin for 12 years of my life. I certainly wish that it was a lot longer but her memory will live with me always.  And with the horrible things that go on in this world everyday, I remember that it is so important to always tell the close ones in your life that you love them and to live  every day  trying to be the best person you can be.  Accomplish your goals, work hard at life, laugh often, make lasting relationships and most importantly, be thankful and blessed with the life that God has given you because it is such a gift. 

I love you now and forever sweet girl!

This shows our special relationship. She was my 3rd older sister. not just a cousin.

Defying the Goliath's in our Lives

 The sermon that my pastor preached on Sunday was  powerful. It was the story of David and Goliath a story that many of us are familiar with. Someone who might not be qualified demolished this huge opponent. But what stuck out to me was 1st Samuel 17:45,  David said to the Philistine. " You come against me with sword and spear and javelin but I come against you i the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." Wow. That is an awesome verse.  It reminds me of the song from Chris Tomlin " Our God" when he says, " If our God is for us than who can be against us."  We always have God on our side and He is musch stronger than any human weapon ever created.  This young man David, loved GOd and stood up on His behalf. My pastor said the main thing to get out of the sermon was that those who Love God are willing to stand up on His behalf.  That is true.    I began to think of the "Goliaths" in my life. Everyone has one. That one thing or person that is defying God and tearing you away from Him.  The " Goliaths" in our world are the horrible things. HUman trafficking, famine, racism, murders, shootings, drug abuse, alcoholism, and much more. We live ina cruel and ungodly world. All these things are telling us that we are powerless just like in 1st Samuel 17 when the kings and other men believed that David was powerless. The real hope lies in the fact that Goliath doesn't stand a chance with our God.  We need to stand up on his behalf.

 Also, An 8 year old girl got up and talked about her fear. She said her fear was getting cancer and than she said this amazing profound statement.  Sin is cancer in our lives. It is a sickness. If I knew the cure for cancer, I would tell people about it. In the same way, we have the cure to sin. It is Christ. therefore we need to spread the cure to everyone we meet. She definitely touched me.
 I hope you all enjoyed reading this. It was just something that was on my heart.  Never feel powerless. We have all the power in Christ Jesus. He will never let you fall.

Worship

The other day when I was reflection on a poem that I read in my poetry class, I came across the theme of  worships and praise.  Some notes from my notebook,
" Praise and worship is looked at in society as just singing songs in Church on Sundays. Worship is so much more than that.  The poem's name was " the Journey of the Magi." and it basically told the story of the common story that people know. Bringing gifts of frankincense  incense and myrrh. The poem stated that what could a baby do wit these gifts. These gifts are not at all the gifts that people would give to babies in the 21st century. If those gifts were given today, a mother would give that person a strange look. But what did these gifts mean years ago. It was a symbol of Christi's love for us. How does this have to do worship? These three wise men came to worship an innocent perfect child.  Worship demands our attention and as a follower of Christ I should be worshiping God every hour of my day not just at church on Sundays. Praise can be done in a form of sacrifice as well. Sometimes giving up something for God  can be a form of worship or simply being still in the presence of god and knowing that  He deserve all of my time not just an hour but 24 hours."
This was on my heart and I wanted to share it with everyone.